Analysis Of Film Related To Ours

I chose the film Scream 4 to analyse, as I think that it has a film that is very similar to ours and is a film we could take inspiration of, and we have taken a lot of inspiration from the Scream franchise to help with our film.

  Here is one of the first shots shown in the film. We see an attractive girl on the phone to someone, and the person on the other end of the phone has a very creepy voice. This shows conventions of a classic horror film, an attractive woman on the phone, classic gruff murderers voice.

This is an over the shoulder shot of the attractive, innocent looking young woman with a quite large knife in her hand. This represents the film as a slasher horror, and that maybe it could have a twist to the story, as stereo-typically she doesn't look like the kind of person that would be holding a knife with such ease.

There is then an introduction of another attractive young friend on her phone, which is stereotypically a classic teenager. She seems to be the other girls friend and is showing her something she is impressed with on her phone.

The girl is then shown on the phone, and her face looks like confusion and fear of the voice on the other line, as her friend non chalantly makes jokes about it being her 'stalker'.

The hangup, and the phone rings again. When they dont answer it, the second girl gets a text telling her to, showing that her stalker and the cerepy voice are related. This doesnt worry the first girl, and becasue she looks younger this could show a contrast in personalities.

Because of the events, the girls seem a little bit on edge (one more than the other) and this is shown more so when the doorbell rings and they both scream.

The first girl then shows bravery and opens the door, to nothing. She steps outside, and this is the first establishing shot of the film, showing a surburban household.

When she steps back inside, the 'stalker' from the girls phone sends a text saying 'im not outside'. This is then the second moment to make the audience jump, but it is also the first gory moment of the film. The voice is the implied to be the person in the cloak and mask, and they stab the second girl straight in the chest.

Here is a mid-shot showing the same girl that was holding the knife before with a cut in her throat. This shows that the knife in the shot before was a hint as to what was going to happen next, and this clip is an insight to what the rest of the film is going to be like. 

I think this is important shot for the beginning of the film as even though it has a short title sequence, it also shows 2 other fake named films. They entice you into thinking that that is the film you are about to see, but then it zooms out from the title to show another two girls with their back’s facing the camera, and I think this is done to show the nature of the film, as it is done several times before the real title is shown.

The blonde heads are then shown to be attractive women, who could be friends or even sisters. The girl closest seems to be moaning about the film they just watched, whereas the girl furthest away looks as if she is fed up of hearing the other woman talking.

BAM. The second violence shown. The second woman has gotten so fed up of her friend 'jabering on' that she stabs her in the gut, and doesnt seem bothered about it at all, which is unconventional as a woman that looks like her wouldnt be seen with a knife, she would usually be the victim, as her friend is.

This shot shows the pure shock on the girlsface at her friends behaviour, and tries to speak but just spits up blood, which is the opposite to what she was being like 30 seconds ago. Her friend then sarcastically says 'Now shut up, and enjoy the film' Which could be seen as very ironic to the audience.

The shot then moves out form another fake film and onto another pair of attractive blonde, possible teens. This is then found out to be the actual film.

Again with the other girls, there is a contrast in opinions on the film they just watched, but it doesn't end as brutally as the scene before. The girls are pretty, which in horror films could stereotypically mean low in intelligence, but this isn't true in this case. One of the girls thinks she hears something, so goes to see whats happening. 

She goes up stairs, and this could be an establishing shot, as it shows another part of the house. This is then when the horror style music starts to build up, creating tension for the audience. 

The music abruptly stops as she turns the light on to a girly-looking room, which would be unconventional to the rooms seen in standard horror films.

the phone then starts to ring. which would cause suspicion in the audiences' minds. The voice on the phone is the classic gruff voice, which would make the audience think that her fate would be the same as the other girls. There is then a sudden girl laugh down the phone...

... and the voice turns out to be her friend pulling a prank, making the audience relax.

The girl then goes back downstairs with all the lights off, and she thinks this is a prank to get her back by her friend. then the phone rings again, and when she finds it to be the gruff voice again, her mood suddenly changes drastically.

Her friend is then thrown through the window nearest. She has blood all over her, giving the impression that the man on the phone has stabbed her best friend and then thrown her dead friend at her.

The guy in the cloak and mask from the other films then jumps through the broken window, showing that the films before did have some truth behind them.

She screams, dodging his knife slices and runs up the stairs. This is something that would would make the audience scream at the screen, as the audience know conventions of horror films and know that it is the wrong thing to run up stairs away from the killer.

The killer eventually captures her, even though part of the audiences' mind would assume that she may survive, as she survived much longer than the rest of the characters in the film so far, but she doesn't. This is a great insert shot of the bloody knife used to killer her and then as it slices down it moves into the title sequence. 

There isn't really a title sequence in this film, the opening sequence is about ten minutes long and then after the 4^th or 5^th person is already killed they finally show the title of the film, with a background of the classic Scream mask that has been the logo for the quadrilogy for many years.

This scene then changes swiftly into a sunny happy scene, but there are small versions of the masked person on lamp posts, showing this figure as a known thing. This seems unconventional after the scenes before.

Here is a shot that focuses more on the figures.

Then there is the introductions to the first main character, and this is a women that has been in the scream films before, which could give the impression that if she lived through one film, she could live through this film. 

There is then the introduction of the first male character seen, and with the look of him he seems like someone manly and burly.

He is seen downstairs to his suburban house, and he is dressed as a police officer, so the conventions described earlier could be connected right, as an officer could be seen as tough and burly.

However, when this woman drives past her too fast, he seems quite timid. This is the introduction to the next female character, who is also quite attractive (I think there a theme here).

And again....

AND, again...

One of the girls phone rings, and it is the same voice that got the rest of the girls before killed (again, seems to be a theme). They seem to be freaked out and hang up the phone, which could be a big mistake. As they speak about the recent phone girl, the girl driving doesn't notice the cross roads and almost gets the three of the ran over, which could give the impression that this could be there overall fate of the film. thankfully, this was a near miss.

The film has been rated a slasher horror, and I think this is true as an average horror film would start with a story and would gradually increase the gruesomeness, but this film, like most Slashers, begins in the first five minutes with stabbings and lots of blood. Another reason this film would be a slasher as it involves a lot of ‘ditsy’ usually blonde, attractive women and they are usually the ones to be killed first. However, this film does have a twist at the end, but I think this film has enough killing and lots of blood and gore to be put into the sub-genre Slasher Horror.